THR‘s Women in Entertainment issue has always been a barometer of progress. When the power list debuted in 1992, one Hollywood executive joked that the only place she saw fewer women was on a football field. The landscape has changed dramatically since then. Women now run studios, networks, agencies and streaming platforms and oversee sports divisions. Back then, this magazine’s editors struggled to fill a list of 100 industry powerhouses. Now our biggest challenge is deciding (begrudgingly) whom to leave off.
But that progress has always come with an asterisk. An anonymous new THR survey of under-35 female execs tells the story. Fifty-nine percent of respondents say it’s easier to be a young woman in Hollywood than it was a decade ago; a majority say they feel supported by senior female leaders; and nearly half believe #MeToo has meaningfully changed the industry for the better. And yet, more than four out of five say they need to work harder than their male counterparts — a reminder of the chasm that still exists between “better” and “equal.”
The work of widening that circle extends beyond these pages. Our WIE mentorship program, created with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Los Angeles, pairs high school girls from underserved communities with influential women in town. The program has helped send alums to Harvard, USC, UCLA, Columbia, Chapman and Loyola Marymount on full scholarships, many of them the first in their families to set foot on a college campus. If the Power 100 is the glossy barometer of how far Hollywood has come, these students are the clearest argument for where it needs to go next.
This year’s event honors Gwyneth Paltrow with the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award, now in its 20th year, and Jennifer Lopez with the Equity in Entertainment Award. They join an extraordinary roster of past recipients who turned their careers into platforms for change, starting with the legendary studio chief for whom Paltrow’s award is named.
While women in Hollywood have achieved a kind of status that would have been hard to imagine in 1992, we’ll know that they’ve achieved true parity when it is obsolete. Because if power in this town were truly gender-neutral, the WIE Power 100 would be a charming relic instead of the most closely read list in Hollywood.
Maer Roshan,
Editor-in-Chief
@MaerRoshan
***
THR Celebrates the WIE Class of 2025
The Mentees
Andrea John F. Kennedy High School
Angela City Honors High School
Audrey John F. Kennedy High School
Chloe Los Angeles High School of the Arts
Cierra John F. Kennedy High School
Danait Roybal Film and Television Magnet
Destiny Compton High School
Janae City Honors High School
Kayla Birmingham Community Charter High School
Kayleen Hamilton High School
Natalia Birmingham Community Charter High School
Oriana City Honors High School
Sandi Dominguez High School
Sophia John F. Kennedy High School
Stephanie Ánimo Watts College Prep
Stephany Compton High School
Tarada Birmingham Community Charter High School
Valerie Ánimo Inglewood Charter High School
And Now Their Mentors
Danielle Stokdyk
President of Levitan Productions, executive producer of Nobody Wants This
Dr. Eve Glazier
President of UCLA Health Faculty Practice
Ali Woodruff
Senior U.S. programming executive at Apple TV
Jenna Santoianni
President of TV at MRC
Meredith Roberts
Executive vp, CEO of Disney Television Animation
Bree Frank
Senior production executive at Amazon-MGM Studios’ Evolution Media
Sumi Parekh
Executive director of Group Effort Initiative
Myiea Coy
Senior vp television at Confluential Media
Dana Lipman
General counsel at the Entertainment Industry Foundation
Jody Gerson
CEO of Universal Music Publishing Group
Megan Byce
Head of public figure and creator partnerships at Meta
Adia Matthews
Vice president of partnership marketing at Hulu
Lauren Townsend
Executive vp corporate communications at Fox
Ivette Rodriguez
President and founder of American Entertainment Marketing
Nicole Martin
Legal program director at the Entertainment Industry Foundation, Know Your Rights Camp
Michelle Weiner
Co-head of CAA’s books division
Ginger Chan
Chief marketing officer at WME
Laura Roenick
Partner and senior vp people, United Talent Agency
This story appeared in the Dec. 3 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.hollywoodreporter.com ’
